Newsletter Published October 5, 2018 · 4 minute read
Climate & Energy Communications Cheat Sheet 10/5/18
We’re also waiting anxiously for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to release its a special report next week - a preview of the report suggests that we remain on a very dangerous track, and will likely blow past 1.5 degrees of warming in the near future unless aggressive steps are taken right away. Third Way and World Resources Institute are hosting a small briefing on the new report for Hill staff next Thursday, October 11 at 2:30 in Cannon House Office Building, Room 121. Feel free to join.
Clean Air, Who Needs It?
In an effort to weaken another Obama-era regulation, the EPA has proposed to eliminate a rule requiring the federal government to consider “co-benefits” when restricting emissions of specific pollutants. In this particular case, there is a quantifiable benefit to limiting mercury emissions, but this also generates quantifiable benefits by simultaneously reducing soot and nitrogen oxide pollution. The existing rule has prevented 11,000 deaths, 130,000 asthma attacks and 4,700 heart attacks per year by EPA’s own estimates. But by hiding the full costs and benefits, the Trump proposal would make it more difficult to justify such stringent requirements against a deadly pollutant like mercury. It goes without saying that children and infants in poorer communities and communities of color are more likely to be affected due to their proximity to these pollution sources and their lack of access to affordable and quality healthcare.
Talking Points
- The regulation of mercury and other powerful pollutants by the Obama Administration saved 11,000 lives per year, stopped 130,000 children from going to the hospital with asthma attacks, and saved 4,700 people from life-altering and deadly heart attacks.
- The Trump Administration wants not only to dismiss but to hide, the full costs of pollution borne by the American public. This dangerous effort should be stopped for the sake of the environment, public health, and basic principles of government transparency.
- Once again this administration has decided to value the bottom line of it’s largest donors rather than the lives of Americans, in particular, infants and children.
- This Administration is grasping at straws in a misguided effort to save coal. And it’s willing to and in doing so plans to endanger the lives of far more Americans than it ever has any hopes of employing.
ICYMI
In Monday’s Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis interviewed EPA’s Acting Administrator and former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, who said this about the mercury rollback, “I just think it’s a little fuzzy math when you say, ‘Reduce mercury and we have all these other benefits over here,’ as the shiny object.”
Sneak Preview: IPCC Special Report (SR15)
On Monday, October 8, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its first report since the Fifth Assessment Report in 2014 (AR5). The study shows the Earth is on path towards a global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius and that without aggressive and ambitious global climate mitigation policies it is likely to blow past that marker, thus creating significant damage to entire regions and ecosystems. The report spotlights a variety of energy sources like carbon capture and renewables as practical, feasible, and even necessary pathways to hit our climate goals.
Don’t Miss
Third Way and World Resources Institute (WRI) will be hosting a briefing for policymakers on major takeaways from the 2018 IPCC report on Thursday, October 11 at 2:30 pm in the Cannon House Office Building, Room 121. Third Way’s Senior Policy Advisor Erin Burns will moderate a panel with climate and policy experts Lindsey Walter of Third Way, and Karl Hausker and Kelly Levin from WRI.
ICYMI
Representatives of 195 countries, including the United States, are in Incheon, South Korea to finalize the IPCC report’s Summary to Policymakers. On Wednesday, E&E News’ Jean Chemnick reported that US representatives’ were highlighting the report’s scientific “uncertainties” in order to advance the Trump Administration’s climate denial narrative and support for fossil fuels.
